


if you speak of love

by Eliane



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: (loosely), Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Infidelity, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 03:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10428213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliane/pseuds/Eliane
Summary: "How do you weigh love?"





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is for tish who said i should write a fedal fic something like nine months ago now and who unknowingly gave me the idea for this. i hope you like it! 
> 
> thanks to marianna for listening to me complain (as usual) and to carlo for proofreading this and being very thorough. all remaining mistakes are mine.

He shares another glance with Rafa and Roger feels it, simmering in his veins, as unavoidable as breathing.

It’s an unspoken truth that always lingers between them, whenever they’re together, invisible yet somehow almost tangible in a way that makes Roger wonder how many others are able to perceive it and recognise it for what it is.

He’s aware that he has to finish his speech, that he’s not done yet, and the trophy weighs a little more heavily in his arms. He wants to bask in this truth, he wants to let it take over his body inch by inch until there is nothing left of him but this.

He can’t.

He finishes his speech.

***

The truth is they’re in love. They have been for years.

There’s nothing they can do about it.

*** 

When he was young – and it’s not so odd now to think of being twenty-five as young – he had raged against it, cried about it, spent sleepless nights staring at the blank ceilings of various hotel rooms (that’s a comforting thing about hotel rooms, no matter how much the décor might vary from one to another the ceiling is always white and blank), thinking he would suffocate under the sheer weight of it, that he had to. That he couldn’t go on living like this, barely able to breathe when he so much as caught a glimpse of Rafa’s silhouette. And he used to see him all the time back then, in the hallways of hotels all around the world, in the lockers, facing him on the court.

He was wrong, of course. He had continued on living. He had kept on breathing. He hadn’t been crushed by it. Time had passed and things had settled – a bit.

If asked –

(He imagines it, at times. A press conference, maybe, when they’re older, grey peppering their hair, or no, not a press conference. An interview. Could be during a slam, him being there to give his expert and highly-sought after opinion to a bunch of TV channels, yes, and someone could ask, would ask _: How was it Roger? How was it to be in love for so long and not be able to do anything about it?_ )

If asked he wouldn’t say that it had become easier with time, that the love he was always carrying with him had become less. What it had become was this: familiar. The kind of familiarity that allows you to forget about it, sometimes. That allows you to focus on other things, and Roger had plenty of things to focus on. Tennis, his wife, his family. The kind of familiarity that allows you to take a deep breath where before you used to believe that you would suffocate under the weight of it and tell yourself instead _I will survive this_.

So he had.

***

Other weights Roger is used to carrying: the one of a tennis racket at the end of his arm, of a yellow ball in the palm of his hand, the phantom one of a wedding ring he doesn’t wear.

***

The moment of realisation isn’t earth-shattering. Of course, looking back, it’s easy to see how much it affected his life, how the knowledge that he was in love with Rafa changed him to his very core. But the moment itself is calm, peaceful. Maybe because it happened gradually.

The attraction comes first and the attraction Roger can ignore. It’s not like he has to act on it. It’s – well. It’s fine. There’s even something pleasing about it, about the way heat flares between the two of them whenever they meet, a heat that isn’t so different from the exhilaration that comes from playing and, most of all, winning. But there is more to it than heat, more to it than playing and winning (or losing). There are all the quiet times in-between.

A smile shared oh so often, conversations held amidst the constant background noises of a locker room or in the somewhat artificial quietness of a hotel room, texts sent and received, infusing his veins with the kind of warmth that is more than the heady beginnings of a new friendship, a warmth that feels a lot like _I need to know more, I want to know more, I want to know everything_. Those are tiny things, unremarkable moments when taken separately but that, when all added together, lead him to think, _oh_.  Nothing earth-shattering about it, no, nothing momentous.

He goes out on his balcony, one morning, surrounded by a clear view of the mountains, one that always manages to take his breath away no matter how many times he lays his eyes upon it. Yet there is something in him that longs for more, for a different kind of view. Something that longs for the sea, the steady waves of the Mediterranean, for hot sand beneath his feet, for a smell that belongs to the south. A specific mix of cypresses and burnt earth. For a hand in his that looks nothing like Mirka’s. _Oh_ – he thinks.

And – _I’m in love with him_.

***

It’s not as simple as a case of passion versus reason, the attraction of the forbidden versus the steadiness of normalcy and what’s expected of him. It would be easy, if that was all there is to it. In the early days, after recognising it for what it was, he had kind of hoped it would be. He had tried to rationalise it that way, to tell himself that it would fade and go away. It hadn’t. So no, it’s not as simple as that. There’s also a steadiness to his love for Rafa, there has to be after all these years, and Roger’s only ever liked expectations when he was defying them anyway.

It’s different from the love he has for Mirka. He knows her intimately, has lived with her for years, has married her. He knows what she looks like at 4am, being woken up for the fifth time that night, exhaustion etched on every inch of her skin and what she looks like at her most radiant, face flushed with happiness, holding babies – their babies –in her arms. It’s a love born from closeness and that knows how to withstand it.

His love for Rafa, though, has grown in the distance between them, has been nurtured by wanting and never being able to have. By looking – and oh, how Roger had looked over the years – and (almost) never touching. Yet there’s still a form of intimacy between them he can’t deny, nor does he want to. He knows what Rafa looks like when he’s about to lose a match to Roger. And what he looks like when he’s about to win. What comes after, no matter who won and who lost – the press of calloused fingertips against his stomach, the weight of a shoulder against his, the warmth of a hand against the nape of his neck. And no, it’s not the same as a life together, doesn’t come close to it, but if there’s nothing else he can have then this has to count for something.

***

This is the one time when it doesn’t happen –

Dubai, 2007, after the quarter finals. Roger is through to the semis, Rafa isn’t.

It’s the end of February which means that the heat isn’t unbearable yet and, this late in the evening, it could even be described as nice. There’s something surreal about the atmosphere of the city, something heavy. As if time had stopped and they weren’t living in the real world anymore but one separated from it, a world where things don’t go as fast, where there’s more time to just sit down and rest.

Despite the stillness, or maybe because of it, Roger feels restless in a way that he can’t quite put into words. There’s an itch burning under his skin, one that has nothing to do with tennis and the fact that he has a match to play the day after but can’t sleep.

It might have something to do with Rafa.

The not so reasonable thing to do would be to go to the hotel bar and have a drink in the hopes that the unusual consumption of alcohol would help smooth his nerves, take the edge off and let him find some rest. Instead he opts for the definitely not reasonable thing to do. He knocks on Rafa’s door.

(He always knows where Rafa is staying, it’s an indulgence of sorts, a small compromise he lets himself have. The list of compromises will grow longer as the years go by but that’s what comes after.)

Rafa opens the door, hair dishevelled and there’s a softness to his demeanour that makes Roger believe he was on the verge of falling asleep.

“I’m sorry,” Roger says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Rafa answers and opens the door wide enough for Roger to slip inside. As hotel rooms go, this one is rather unremarkable. It’s spacious and tastefully decorated but, in truth, they could be anywhere in the world and Roger kind of has the impression they are. The itch under his skin hasn’t disappeared but Roger is calmer now, can breathe a little easier in Rafa’s presence. Rafa leads them to the sitting area and it’s not the first time they’ve done this, not the first time they’ve found themselves alone in a hotel room when they should both be asleep, but this one is different. Maybe it’s the dreamlike atmosphere of the city or maybe it’s how Roger feels, like he’s teetering on the edge of a cliff, like it wouldn’t take much for him to do something they both won’t be able to come back from. To cross some kind of line that has, until now, stayed unacknowledged in mutual and tacit understanding. This is dangerous. If Rafa had seemed a tiny bit more alert, a little less sleep-rumpled when opening the door, it would have been fine but he hadn’t and there’s a fragility permeating the air in the room that speaks of thousands of possibilities hovering between them. Roger sits down on the sofa while Rafa goes to fetch them something to drink – a beer for himself and a glass of water for Roger that he places on the coffee table.

“You have a match tomorrow, no?” Rafa says in a way that sounds like an apology.

“I can’t sleep,” Roger says. It’s both a reply and an explanation.

“Ah”, Rafa answers. “You play bigger matches.” He doesn’t say it as a question yet Roger can’t ignore the subtle inquiry.

“Yeah, I’m feeling kind of restless. Maybe it’s the city.”

It’s not. He understands that now, Rafa staring at him from the armchair he is sat on, leaving a small but unmistakable distance between them. It’s a deflection and, more than that, they are both aware of it.

“Maybe I should go,” he says, standing up. He doesn’t get very far – Rafa catches his hand as he tries to move past the armchair and toward the door.

“Roger,” Rafa only says, but it’s enough.

Roger sits back down on the armrest of the sofa, their clasped hands resting on his thighs. He glances down at them, the warmth of Rafa’s hand against his more suffocating than the Dubai heat could ever be.

He wants to kiss Rafa. Which, admittedly, isn’t new. But he wants to kiss Rafa and Rafa is so close and he wants to be kissed, Roger is sure of it, has never been surer of anything in his life. It’s in the way his lips are slightly parted, in how he’s breathing a tad too fast. In how every second they spend not speaking is bringing them closer to each other. He wants to kiss Rafa now, in this moment, without anyone to stop them. Anyone to tell them how insane it would be.

He takes in a breath.

“If we do this,” Roger says, “I can’t… I won’t be able to do it halfway.”

Those aren’t the words he had envisioned saying during the nights where he let himself fantasize about what that conversation would be like, should it ever occur. They are clumsy and too harsh and don’t reflect in any way how he had felt this one morning on a balcony, gazing at the mountains and longing for the sea. He tries again.

“I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t want to hide it.” And, well. He isn’t sure that’s clearer, yet Rafa looks at him like it’s enough for him to understand what Roger means. But he would know, of course, what Roger is trying to tell him, is as familiar as Roger is with what being an athlete entails, with the things you have to do in order to achieve what they’ve achieved (and it’s just the beginning). He understands that there is always a price to be paid, that in order to take what they want for themselves they would first have to _give_ something. Which is, in the end, the question Roger is asking him –

_What are we willing to give?_

(He hopes that Rafa also understands what Roger is asking of him. Not to choose for him, for them both, but with him.)

It seems to take an eternity for Rafa to reply and when he does it’s not an answer. “And after?” he asks.

It’s a good question.  Roger imagines it, imagines all of this – the endless stream of different hotel rooms, the almost never-changing pattern of every year, the victories and the defeats, all having come to an end, leaving nothing but time in front of him, time to do with as he wants. He closes his eyes, for a moment, because it’s too much to bear.

“After” he repeats, voice low and he knows, as he says it, that this is his answer.

He opens his eyes again to see Rafa nodding in acquiescence, a tiny motion of the head.

“Okay,” Roger breathes. “Okay.”

It should be absurd that such an important conversation should require so few words yet there is something poetic about it. Tennis is a sport that uses words with parsimony and never ventures out of its long-established routine – _first serve, second serve, let, fifteen love, thirty love, forty love, game_ and again, and again, and again.  The language of tennis is the one they both know best except for their own and yes, it makes sense to Roger that this conversation should be as sparse as the rhythmic words coming from an umpire’s voice during a match.

It doesn’t make it any less devastating.  

Roger has known losses (although the worst ones are yet to come) and some of those losses felt like they would break his heart. But this – being barely able to glance at Rafa’s profile illuminated by the dim lights of the city surrounding them after they’ve both said _not now_ , albeit not in so many words, is what heartbreak must be like. There are no other losses that can compare with this one, with what Roger leaves in this nondescript hotel room when he disentangles his hand from Rafa’s and gets up. He takes the few steps that separate him from the door, the silence that accompanies him a physical force weighting on his shoulders. He closes the door behind himself and doesn’t look back.

It didn’t happen. And, for the next ten years or so, it kept not happening.

***

They were twenty and twenty-five when it didn’t happen, and if it’s not so odd now to think of being twenty-five as young, it _is_ almost unbearable to think of Rafa at twenty, the rawness he seemed to carry within himself, the way he illuminated everything around him without being aware of doing so. Roger misses it, sometimes.

He shifts a little, lets both of his hands rest against the cool metal of the trophy, lets himself appreciate the weight of it. They’re still taking his picture or, more precisely, taking pictures of him _with_ the trophy, pictures of him as a winner. Pictures that will erase all the ones that were taken during the years he didn’t win. What’s true for history is also true for sports: in the end, you only remember the victors. The conquerors.

After the photographs will come the interviews. He’ll have to answer the same questions over and over again, already has the appropriate answers to them swirling in his mind. There won’t be anything genuine about them but that’s not what the journalists are after anyway. They want the perfect story and he has one. A story of overcoming the limitations of his aging body, of overcoming other people’s doubts, the world’s faithlessness. It doesn’t matter to anyone that he does have another story to tell.

_(How was it to be in love for so long and not be able to do anything about it?_ )

***

It’s after it doesn’t happen that it gets heavy. That Roger starts feeling like he might be crushed under the sheer weight of it. The conversation, instead of quenching the deep need he has for Rafa, only ignited it a bit more. It was manageable before because it was something of a fantasy – impossible. Now that the fantasy was on the verge of becoming reality, that he was so close to touching and taking and keeping what he wanted for himself, he believes he might go mad with want. He replays what happened in his head and imagines what would have happened had they not stopped it. Roger recalls the heat coming from Rafa’s hand on his and when he thinks about the kiss they could have shared he imagines it consuming him, burning, scorching. He doesn’t often let his imagination wander further. 

There’s some kind of irony to the fact that even though nothing happened, even though Roger was tested and passed the test he is still undone by the thoughts of what might have happened. Over the years he’s prided himself on being able not to dwell on the small mistakes that can make you lose a tennis match you thought was yours to win, on the fraction of a second that can either lead you to victory or defeat. He’s consistently been able to put those moments behind him and begin anew each time.

If there’s one thing Roger learns, after the hotel room in Dubai, it’s that he’s not as good as he thought at leaving things in the past, at denying himself. He also learns that there are times you don’t have a choice.

So his days are filled with tennis and tennis is what he knows best, what he does best. Roger plays and he wins, he wins, he wins (until he doesn’t).

Always, he remembers a night in Dubai, when it almost happened but didn’t.

***

Once, when asked about why he chose to live in Dubai, he answers that it helped keep him sane. They assume he’s talking about tennis, of course, and he’s powerless to correct them.

*** 

It’s not always a weight.

He’ll catch Rafa’s eyes, their shoulders will brush, they’ll share a smile. It will be somewhere in the world, anywhere in the world, and Roger will suddenly feel unbearably light, as if he could do anything. There’s such faith in Rafa’s eyes when he looks at Roger, such faith in his words when he speaks about Roger, that Roger can’t help but think that he needs to be worthy of it.

Roger cherishes those times, their rarity. He wakes up the mornings after and his body still seem to be infused with a lightness he wouldn’t know how to describe. Everything is brighter – the colours of the current hotel room’s wallpaper, the pale rays of the sun, himself. For one moment everything is perfect, even if nothing is quite as he wants it to be.

It’s not always a weight.

***

This is how the list of compromises grows as the years go by.

He knows where Rafa is staying and Rafa knows where Roger is staying. It wasn’t a thing, at first. Roger liked knowing, the way it gave him the illusion of control: he could choose to avoid Rafa or to run into him, depending on how he felt. He was aware that it was nothing more than that – an illusion. There are plenty of other places for him to run into Rafa and none of them have anything to do with him wanting it or not.

After Dubai, it becomes more of a reassurance. If they can’t be together, then letting the other know where they are staying is a way of anchoring themselves in each other’s reality. It doesn’t matter whether they are in the same city, playing the same tournament, or not. They will send a text, whenever they arrive somewhere new, with an address and, when appropriate, the number of a hotel room.

The weeks without a text mean – home. 

He forces himself to like the tournaments Rafa loves best, the ones where he excels. For Roger, that means learning everything there is to know about them. He accumulates statistics in his head as he would those of an opponent, never writing them down. He won’t forget them. On occasion, he sends them to Rafa, carefully memorised facts as so many declarations of love.

There are also the compromises no one can know about, not even Rafa. The ones Roger only ever thinks about during those strange hours between two and four am, when the world outside seems on the brink of disappearing, when it seems that the sun might never rise again, that the night is all there is and all there ever will be. These are the bargains Roger makes with himself: _If I win two tournaments on clay, I’ll have lunch with Rafa. If I win two tournaments on clay, including the French Open, we’ll go to dinner. If I win the French Open and Wimbledon_ – but the story, of course, doesn’t let Roger uphold this last one.

Here’s a thing about the bargains you make with yourself and yourself only: no one else knows what you stand to lose.

***

After the wedding, after the twins are born, Rafa goes a bit wild. It’s not something Roger wishes to know about but rumours are unescapable, especially in such a small circle as theirs. They are just rumours, it’s true, but Roger has been doing this for long enough that he knows when those whispers (of Rafa with men, men that aren’t Roger) are baseless and when they are fuelled by something more substantial. 

It’s a novel thing, jealousy. He knew there was no need to be jealous of Xisca and had taken for granted that the _status quo_ would remain unchanged. Which, reflecting on it, was rather unfair. He deals with it by telling himself he has no right to be jealous and, truth is, he doesn’t. Rafa doesn’t owe him a single thing. There is nothing more tangible between them than a conversation that occurred years ago, nothing more than a promise _. After_. Maybe it’s time to admit that after will be coming too late. Neither of them is ready to retire, despite how journalists seem to be willing to bury them at the first opportunity; neither of them is ready to let it end. They still have so much more to do, so much more to accomplish. If neither of them can let go of tennis then yes, maybe it’s time for them to let go of each other.

When they meet, Roger finds himself avoiding Rafa’s gaze and it seems like Rafa is avoiding his in return. Their shoulders don’t brush as often; they keep a distance between them that wasn’t there before. The texts don’t stop but there is a laconic quality to them, or so Roger believes, even though their content is the same as it used to be: a hotel address, a room number. He’s losing it and it shows. It’s difficult to admit that he might have lost something he never truly had and more difficult still to mourn it. Mirka keeps looking at him like she’s not sure she knows who he is anymore and, for the first time since this started, Roger feels guilty.

There had been a clear divide in his mind: this time belonged to Mirka and the time that would come _after_ , would belong to Rafa. Except, of course, that this time also belongs to tennis and that tennis and Rafa are intrinsically intertwined.

He wonders – how much love can one person carry before being crushed by it?

How do you weigh love?  

*** 

The texts stop.

If his love for Rafa should have dwindled away, if it should have disappeared, then this would have been the time. But it doesn’t.

***

Instead, this is what happens.

They’re both attending a charity dinner in Rome, which means taking pictures with people whose names Roger will forget as soon as the pictures are done, making small talk and smiling when Roger would rather go back to his room and sleep for days. It also – it mostly – means seeing Rafa.

Now, Roger hasn’t spent the evening trying to avoid Rafa but he has been careful not to venture too close to him when he can help it. It’s something of a lost cause considering how people keep wanting to take pictures with the both of them and to talk to them both, as if they can sense that Roger and Rafa together, even when they’re not playing tennis, create something magical, something more. Or maybe Roger is just drunk. Mirka isn’t here and he’s had too much champagne and the past year is hanging so heavily between him and Rafa, Roger believes it must be taking up the entire room.

They’re standing in the same group of people, not quite facing each other. Roger is trying to concentrate on the conversation the woman next to him has started but his attention keeps wandering back to Rafa. He’s laughing at something a tall man Roger doesn’t recognise is telling him and it’s not much: the way Rafa’s head tilts back a tiny bit too far, the way his companion leans a bit too close – but Roger’s mind goes blank. He takes a step back, breaking the carefully arranged circle of people, and their eyes meet.

The way Rafa looks at him when he sees Roger’s expression, as if he has betrayed Roger, is enough for Roger to understand that this is exactly what he thinks it is. So he flees.

He doesn’t go far: he can’t leave the event without saying his goodbyes and he needs to be alone, now. He ends up on balcony that’s too small for people to have taken it over. He leans on the railing, taking in the view of the empty streets in front of him, the air still damp with the earlier rain. In the distance the unmistakable shape of Saint Peter’s basilica. He’s trying to collect himself when the noise of a door being opened and closed reaches him. He doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s Rafa.

“Is not serious,” Rafa says in this blunt way he has, settling next to Roger. Roger can’t see his face without turning but can see his hands on the railing, knuckles almost white from how hard he’s gripping it, betraying his even tone.

“Do you wish it was?”

Rafa, instead of answering, shrugs as if it doesn’t matter and Roger can’t quite identify the feeling that settles inside his chest. He wants to reassure Rafa, to tell him it’s fine but no words come out of his mouth.

“Roger, I’m…” Rafa begins.

“Please,” Roger interrupts, “please don’t apologize to me.” Not for winning and not for this. Never for this. Roger turns around then and looks at Rafa who isn’t looking back. Instead he’s staring at his own hands as if those hands, so sure when it comes to finding the perfect gesture that will help him win a point, a match, could help them find a way out of this situation with the both of them intact. Roger isn’t sure it’s possible. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” he adds. “If anyone should be apologising, I guess it should be me.”

Rafa shakes his head, bemused. “For why?”

For all the things Roger got wrong. For thinking they could wait, that they had all the time in the world. That it would, somehow, all come together in the end. Instead, he apologises silently for what he’s about to say.

“I think,” he draws a breath, “that maybe it’s time for us to stop waiting.”

“Is what you want?” Rafa’s tone is circumspect, almost clinical.

“No. But I don’t know what else we can do.” At least, it’s the truth.

For a moment, it seems like Rafa is about to say something, to try to convince Roger that he’s wrong and that there is something else they can do. In the end he just nods.

“Okay,” Rafa says, meeting Roger’s gaze for the first time since this conversation started and that’s it. His expression is inscrutable but there’s something resigned in his eyes, as if he had always known it would come to this and Roger can identify the feeling in his chest now, spreading through his body, tightening his throat. Shame. For what he has done to Rafa. For what he didn’t do.

Rafa kisses him then, a slight press of the lips against the corner of Roger’s mouth, so faint it might as well have never happened, before going back to the party.

Roger stands very still. 

***

Roger understands the nature of compromise, believes any athlete does. Compromise is letting his body rest when he wants to keep on training, not playing tournaments he knows he could win in order to win the ones that truly matter, that will help him write history. It’s standing in a hotel room in Dubai one night and saying, _okay. After_.

And, as any athlete committed to winning does, he understands the nature of sacrifice. Sacrifice is Roger giving up on having a normal youth and spending the years he should be misbehaving on shaping his body into a tool that will allow him to win, his mind into a tool that will be determined to win, his soul into an unwavering belief that he can win. It’s giving up on the warmth of easy friendships because if there’s one price for what he has set to become, it’s loneliness. Not even Mirka can alleviate it; this kind of loneliness doesn’t stem from being alone _per se_ but rather from being the only one of your kind. That is, until Rafa comes along.

There is a difference between compromise and sacrifice, although the line that demarcates them blurs every so often. If compromise is about giving something so that you might get something else in return, sacrifice doesn’t allow such reciprocity. It’s about what you’re willing to give up. Back in Dubai Roger had thought of the promise of _after_ as a sacrifice. Years later, Roger stands on a balcony in Rome, one night, says, _maybe it’s time for us to stop waiting,_ and thinks that he knows better now.

If his love for Rafa should have dwindled away, if it should have disappeared, then this would have been the time.

Instead, Roger does the hardest thing he has ever done in his life. He releases Rafa from his promise. He lets him go. 

***

For months Roger doesn’t think about Rafa. Except that’s a lie. For months Roger doesn’t let himself think about Rafa.

He mostly remembers this time in colours, greens and reds melding together to form an abstract recollection of memories, nothing steady, nothing he can hold on to. He remembers the flashes of pictures being taken, of photographers smiling at him, of him not smiling back, someone constantly watching him yet no one ever _seeing_ him.

Of course none of those things – compromise, sacrifice, loneliness – are things only athletes experience. But it’s worse for someone like Roger. They don’t happen to him from time to time, they are the rules that define his life. So most people go through life wishing someone would look at them and _see_ them, longing for one perfect moment of recognition, hoping for their cries in the dark to be answered. Roger’s life was unique enough that he had accepted loneliness as inescapable. Until he had had this moment of recognition (light, so light) and knew what it was like not to be so alone.

The idea of having to go back to it, of losing not only what might have been but also this sense of belonging, is unbearable.

One day, standing in his suite of the week, suitcases not yet opened, he texts his address and the number of the room – 308.

The answer comes immediately.

***

Things aren’t so heavy after that, they almost come back to the way they were before they promised after, before it all went awry.

They don’t play much against each other anymore but when they do see each other it’s not so hard to laugh and to enjoy being together. Maybe it’s part of getting older. Roger understands better now that there are things he can’t bend to his will; things he has no hold on. You can’t choose a moment in the future and say, this is when it will happen, when it has to happen.

If asked, Roger wouldn’t say that it’s easier now, that the love he is always carrying with him has become less. What it has become is this: familiar.

The kind of familiarity that allows him to exist in the same world as Rafa and be in love with him, but not with him.

***

Maybe it’s not so much loneliness as it is isolation. A single word can never encompass all the nuances of a specific situation but still. Isolation might be the word Roger is searching for.

It’s 2004 and he’s number one in the world and it’s just the beginning. It’s heady: the idea of being untouchable, of being unreachable. Roger knows he should savour it but there’s a nagging sensation at the back his mind he can’t quite get rid of, that pushes him to glance at the silhouette on the other side of the net before a match begins and wonder – _will you be the one_? _Will you be the one who manages to touch me?_  

It’s inevitable that it should happen, what he doesn’t expect is for it to happen so soon and for this person to be Rafa. He looks up at Rafa who isn’t _Rafa_ yet, when their first match is over, looks up at Rafa taking his white bandana off, Rafa radiating happiness and that’s when he recognises him.

_Oh._

It takes a whole year for them to meet on the court a second time, and it’s in Miami again but this time Roger isn’t surprised. He knows. It doesn’t matter that Rafa loses – he knows. One day, Rafa will catch up with him and will touch him.

The warmth of the knowledge almost burns Roger’s skin.

***

A journalist asks him the question –

“What is it like? To finally have this after all those years spent waiting for it?”

– And, for a few seconds, Roger is confused before he understands that she’s not talking about Rafa but about the championship. He looks at her and yes, she’s pointing at the trophy in his arms, expression expectant. He lets out a sigh that’s half relief, half something else. Regret, maybe.

“It feels good,” he replies and he can tell from the slight change in her demeanour that she’s disappointed by his answer. It does feel good, though. Everything about this is both familiar and foreign, like speaking a language you haven’t quite forgotten, yet aren’t as comfortable with as you used to be.

He could tell the journalist that he understands waiting, that any athlete does. He could tell her: 1671, the number of days between this trophy and the previous one. What he can’t tell her: that it’s not the longest time he has ever waited. That there are things you might be willing to wait for your whole life, and it doesn’t matter that you once said you would stop.

The thing about sacrifice is that even though you don’t expect anything in return, you still want for it to have a meaning. You want for it not to have been in vain.

Roger thinks – the weight of eighteen trophies against the weight of this one unmeasurable thing.

He’s not sure which one would be heavier.

***

When it’s all over, Roger doesn’t go to Rafa. Instead, he tries. He tries because he understands now that you can’t just divide your life in parts and assign those to one person in particular, that there is no neat line you can draw between now and a hypothetical future. Life is a bundle of moments and choices that overlap each other and, in the end, what remains is what you decide to do, when you decide to do it. Roger tries because he owes Mirka that much. That he loves her has never been in question.

He settles into his post tennis life, a life devoted to the kids, to Mirka. Yet, no matter how hard he tries, he can’t shake off the sensation that he and Mirka are marching toward the end of their time together. The balance they had achieved, this delicate equilibrium between their life as a couple, as parents and their life on the tour, doesn’t adjust so well to the parameters of their new reality. The things that used to hold them together seem to be fewer and fewer and Roger wonders if it has not been the case for a long time, except that they were too busy to really pay attention to it.

It’s not an unhappy time, if bittersweet. In a way, it’s a bit like his last year on the tour, as if this sense of an impending ending somehow makes every little gesture, every moment shared together both brighter and sadder.

It ends early one morning, the both of them sitting at the kitchen table, remnants of a half-eaten breakfast in front of them. It’s quiet and comes as no surprise.

“I’m sorry,” Roger still feels the need to say, and he is.

Mirka gives him a searching look, as if she’s not sure what to make of his apology. For a few seconds they are teetering on the edge of something that could get ugly if they let it. Roger sees them passing on Mirka’s face – the questions she’s never asked, the accusations she’s never made, the reproaches she has every right to make. Then they disappear, leaving nothing but a resigned expression and, yes, something akin to tenderness.

“You should pack your things, Roger.”

He nods in acquiescence. “What am I going do now?” he wonders out loud, not sure if he’s talking to himself or asking for Mirka’s advice.

Mirka answers him anyway. “You can do whatever you want,” she says.

So Roger does.  

***

In spite of the general consensus, it often seems to Roger that the feeling of belonging is a more powerful one than love. Love is lonely and at times heartbreaking; it’s standing in the middle of your kitchen, looking at the person you married, you built a life with and thinking, _this is not enough_.

Belonging is leaving a plane and setting foot in Mallorca, an island Roger’s only ever been on a few times before, and thinking, _oh_. Roger closes his eyes and inhales and it doesn’t matter that he’s in the middle of an airport, the air is suffused with scents and perfumes that only exist in the Mediterranean. Cypress trees and burnt earth.

When he opens his eyes, Rafa is standing in front of him.

***

This is how it goes.

They’ve managed to not have this conversation as soon as Roger arrived, using the necessity of having to get him settled and then to eat as a tacit excuse to push it back. But now they’re sitting on the terrace in Rafa’s garden, they’ve finished their dinner and are a little loose from the wine they’ve drunk – although they are nowhere near drunk. The sun is starting to set, the moon already half-visible and there’s nothing to prevent them from talking about the reason why Roger is here.

Whatever happens, something will end tonight.

If they can’t do this now that their careers are behind them, now that Roger’s marriage is over, they never will. Roger hasn’t asked if there’s someone in Rafa’s life and maybe that’s a bit presumptuous of him or maybe he just doesn’t care anymore. He’s run out of excuses, there’s nothing left for him to hide behind and he _has_ to know. He also has to do this right.

“Come on,” he says, trying to buy himself some time to gather his thoughts. “Let’s take a walk on the beach.”

There’s a slight breeze softening the air of the evening, as they walk down to the beach, the sunset making everything glow in shades of red and gold. They’re standing very close to each other, their shoulders brushing – once, twice. It shouldn’t be that exhilarating, to be walking next to someone Roger’s loved for so long he can barely remember what it was like not loving them, but it is. With the sand hot beneath his bare feet, Roger is twenty-five again, filled with the sensation that everything is possible, that anything can happen. Especially what he wants the most.

Their shoulders brush a third time and their arms link, like it’s the most natural thing to do. They stop walking when they reach the sea and stand there, Rafa staring at the sea and Roger staring at Rafa. After a while, Rafa looks back.

“Roger,” he starts but Roger shakes his head. It’s his turn to speak.

“Do you know why I’m here?” he asks.

“For free holiday, no?” Rafa answers, laughing and Roger can’t help but laugh a little too.

“Please,” he adds in a serious tone although he’s glad that the atmosphere is a tad lighter.

“I think I know,” Rafa’s voice is soft but determined, all traces of joking gone from it. “But better you tell me.”

“Do you remember… Do you remember that night in Dubai?”

“Yes. For sure.”

“And do you remember that night in Rome?”

“Yes.”

“I’m here because I’m in love with you,” Roger says – and it’s so good to finally say it, to have it in the open. “And I know – I know – that we said, well that I said, that we should stop waiting but, you know? Here we are and I’m still in love with you. I doubt that’ll ever change, so. If you still want this, want me, I’m here.”

It’s not the smooth speech Roger had prepared in his mind but it’s done and all he can do now is wait. Rafa takes a step back, disentangling their linked arms but Roger doesn’t have time panic because Rafa is taking his hands in his and his palms are as warm as Roger remembers them. His heart is beating very fast, like it might jump out of his ribcage and it’s getting harder to breathe, like his lungs might collapse –

“Yes,” Rafa replies, so low Roger might’ve imagined it. Then, louder, “Yes. I love you. This,” he half-shrugs, “has not changed. A lot of things changed. But not this.”

“I wasn’t sure,” Roger says, not realising until he utters those words how scared he had been. How utterly terrified that they had missed their chance.

“You can,” Rafa says, tone painfully earnest now, “be sure.”

Roger laughs in delight and he laughs in relief and Rafa’s hands on his are burning, burning –  Roger laughs and Rafa smiles, that beautiful, happy, carefree smile that reminds Roger of a March day in Miami, so long ago.

In that moment, with Rafa looking at him in a way that abolishes the distance and the years between them, it seems inconceivable to Roger that it hasn’t happened yet. So he does the one thing that makes sense. He kisses Rafa.

Rafa’s lips part under his, soft and willing and for a few seconds they stay in this position, lips barely touching, the awareness that this is what they’ve wanted for so long so heavy they can’t move. Then Rafa lets out a small sound, something between a sigh and a moan, and Roger snaps out of it. He lets go of Rafa’s fingers, one hand grabbing the back of Rafa’s neck while the other sneaks around his waist and he deepens the kiss, opening Rafa’s mouth further and sliding his tongue in, desperate for him to make that sound again.

They kiss and kiss and God, now that he knows what Rafa tastes like, knows the exact pressure of his lips under his, the wetness of his tongue against his, Roger can’t fathom that they spent so much time waiting, that he could’ve had this years ago. He wants it to never end. So he keeps on kissing Rafa, Rafa who’s still making those soft sounds, whose hands are entangled in Roger’s shirt, his knuckles pressing against Roger’s collarbones a bit too hard, as if he would collapse should he let go of it. Roger sympathizes with the feeling. He’s dizzy, the world around him spinning and when he breaks the kiss he has to rest his forehead against Rafa’s in an attempt to steady himself.

“That was…”

“Yeah,” Rafa agrees, voice raw.

They stay like this, not quite hugging. Maybe it’s the recollection of all those other times they’ve been in a similar position yet not able to touch as much as they wanted, maybe it’s just the sheer joy of being so close, skin on skin, but there’s something about their half-embrace that is, somehow, even more intimate than the kiss they’ve just shared. Rafa’s hands disentangle from where they were holding Roger’s shirt to come rest against his back, bringing him closer, until there’s no space left between them. Everything is calm around them, the silence of the night only broken by the sound of their own breathings and the rhythmic noises of the waves crashing against the sand.

Still, they hold each other, a gesture between consolation and solace. Roger revels in having Rafa in his arms, the weight of his body against his reassuring him that this is real, that they’re here. It’s not a hotel room in Dubai, it’s not a balcony in Rome. It’s not any of the myriad of places where it could’ve happened but didn’t, it’s here, right here, during a warm summer night, and it’s perfect simply because it is happening.

Roger pulls away, a little, and presses a small kiss against the crook of Rafa’s neck.

“Sometimes,” he whispers, the words spilling out of his mouth without him being able to hold them back, “sometimes, loving you was so heavy I used to think it would crush me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” Roger huffs a laugh. “No. It was heavy but it wasn’t hard, you know? In fact, it was the easiest thing to do. I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried.”

“Did you?” Rafa asks. “Try?”

Roger tilts his head back, just enough to gaze at the sky, shining with a thousand stars. It should feel lonely, to be facing something as vast as a star-filled sky but Roger feels at peace. He thinks of similar nights spent on balconies all over the world, missing Rafa so damn much the only way not to go mad was to make bargains with himself he knew he would never be able to uphold. He thinks of similar nights after numbing defeats, when nothing seemed to make sense anymore and certainly not the sacrifices he’d made over the years, seeking comfort in the knowledge that Rafa was also in a hotel room – the address of the hotel and the number of the room carefully saved in Roger’s phone, seeking comfort in knowing that he wasn’t the only one of his kind. That he belonged.

“No,” Roger answers and it’s the most honest he’s ever been. “I never did.”

“Good,” Rafa says but what Roger hears is, _me too_.

Roger kisses him again, doesn’t have a choice, really, and it’s hungrier this time, more forceful. It’s less about discovering each other, seeing how they fit, and more about intent, about where this could lead them. He knows where he wants it to lead them.

“Back to the house?” he asks, between two kisses.

“Yes,” Rafa replies. The gaze he turns on Roger is dark and filled with so much longing it leaves Roger gasping for breath. “Yes,” Rafa repeats.

It echoes in the quietness of the night, like the answer to a wish you can’t remember making.

Rafa takes Roger’s hand in his and leads them both back to the house.

***

Later, Rafa goes to sleep and Roger doesn’t. He stays in the dark, eyes wide open, watching the moonlight illuminating the soft curves of Rafa’s body under the sheets. One of his hands is resting against Rafa’s shoulder, not gripping it –  just resting – as if he could vanish should Roger stop touching him, as if this could fade away and Roger be left with nothing but a dream.

To be fair, Roger’s had such dreams before.

Rafa’s face is smooth, his expression peaceful. There will be a time, not far from now, when they’ll talk about it. They’ll talk about what Roger is beginning to think of as the waiting years, they’ll unravel this time spent in each other’s life yet not together and what it meant to them both. There are a lot of things Roger wants to say, how it was not always heavy, how it sometimes was lighter than water when you try to keep it inside your cupped palms but never quite manage it. They’ll talk about the future and what it entails.

But right now, with Rafa’s skin warm under his fingers, his body solid and _there_ , Roger is happy to stay silent and watch him sleep.

***

Maybe it’s impossible to define love with words that would be enough to give it a shape, to turn that feeling into a reality that anyone could grasp and understand. Maybe it’s impossible to measure it in terms of years spent together or apart, in terms of the closeness or the distance between two people.

If asked, though, Roger would say –

_Love has a weight_.


End file.
